Hard choices in the Middle East

December 12, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

Call it the Arab anti-Spring.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

To read this post and thousands more articles, subscribe today!

Citing a potential threat to public health, the Food and Drug Administration moved Wednesday toward phasing out the use of some antibiotics in animals processed for meat. Many cattle, hog, and poultry producers give their animals antibiotics regularly to ensure that the animals are healthy and to facilitate the production process. Now, the agency has announced that it will ask pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily stop labeling drugs important for treating human infection as acceptable for those uses in animal production.

Britain’s Foreign Office says it is suspending delivery of nonlethal aid to Syria’s opposition. The move mirrors a similar decision by US officials Wednesday, days after fighters from the Islamic Front, an umbrella group of six major rebel groups, seized bases and warehouses belonging to the mainstream Western-backed Free Syrian Army rebel group at the border between Syria and Turkey.

Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year on Wednesday, saying the Roman Catholic Church’s new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time. The pope beat out National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden for the distinction, which the newsmagazine has been giving each year since 1927. The former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected in March as the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit. Since taking over at the Vatican, he has urged the Catholic Church not to be obsessed with “small-minded rules” and to emphasize compassion over condemnation in dealing with touchy topics like abortion, gays, and contraception.

World leaders and thousands of South Africans on Wednesday filed past the flag-draped casket containing the body of Nelson Mandela, having a final look at the anti-apartheid icon in the amphitheater where he was sworn in 19 years earlier as the country’s first black president. Some made the sign of the cross, others simply gazed at Mandela’s face through a glass bubble atop the coffin at the Union Buildings, the government offices in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

The Asiana Airlines captain who crashed a Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport in July told investigators he was “very concerned” about attempting a visual approach because the runway’s automatic landing aids were out of service because of construction, according to an investigative report released Wednesday. Lee Kang Kuk, a 46-year-old pilot who was landing the big jet for his first time at San Francisco, “stated it was very difficult to perform a visual approach with a heavy airplane.” The jet crash landed after approaching low and slow in an accident that left three dead and more than 200 injured, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Newport Jazz Festival is kicking off its 60th anniversary with a 17-city US tour. The concerts in February and March will feature an ensemble of jazz artists picked by festival creator George Wein.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

Are you sure?

Forgot to add folder?

Tags Error